It used to be $30. That’s why it goy popular. Broligarchs ruined that along with everything else too.
Because of its documentation, community and software ecosystem. That makes it especially a good entry point for beginners. At least it was when prices were still acceptable.
Got my first in for $5
The Pi was revolutionary when it first came out, there had never been a device with its combination of small size, compute capability and low price before. But over time other devices have caught up if not exceeded the Pi’s capabilities and it no longer stands out in any particular way.
Yes, you do wonder. Glad I could answer that for you.
The hardware itself was never particularity novel. The strength was in the software, support, and community which made the barrier to entry low and learning new skills easy.
Apples and oranges hardware-wise (and maybe having actually taken an intro to C++ course and not python plays a bias), but I found Arduino more approachable for a noob, given the Arduino has example code and a library manager within the IDE. RPi felt less guided to me and required a lot more external reference. That said, there’s something to be appreciated about just saving the .py and having the program run without having to wait a minute to compile.
In terms of GPIO only, Arduino is quicker to get started. Getting an LED to blink is easier on Arduino because you don’t need to setup SSH or use the Pi’s GUI. It’s just that the Pi can do so much more than basic GPIO controlling.
What I’ve used RPi for:
- Finishing masters thesis when my PC died at most unfortunate time possible.
- Controlling 3D printers.
- Connecting old boring paper printers to home network.
- Making my dumb TV smart (worth noting that RPi also supports HDMI-CEC, so no additional remote required).
- Hosting all kinds of stuff - websites, web-services, gaming servers, Discord bots, git server, VPNs, Pi-Hole etc.
- Controlling radio transceivers (SDR).
- Controlling robots.
I’ve probably forgotten something. But yes - it’s a miniature miracle worker, that I used to throw at my problems. 🗿
Oh I know. I have one Pi running Home Assistant, and another running a print server for a printer that has a shitty NIC.
and yet here we are, using a meme depicting a wife abusing piece of shit.
CAN WE NOT HAVE ONE FUCKING NICE THING
It used to have its use cases and still can if you can get one cheap. I bought a 2GB Raspberry Pi 4 last year for €35. It runs Home Assistant and Pi-hole. I prefer it over leaving my media server running all day since it uses vastly less power.
Yeah nowadays they’re like $100 for even the most basic unit
Enterprise thin clients are cheaper and faster, though they use more power with x86/64 cpus
I agree that it is overrated, but I do also think that it still has value and is legitimately pretty cool. It’s nice that it’s so tiny and cheap and easy to set up in like under an hour. Low power consumption for simple things that are nice to run all the time makes it feel pretty friendly on the environment versus running a whole desktop computer or server 24-7.
Yet, like many things that are really good, there ends up being a lot of people who want to sing its praises from the heavens as being not just really good, but the greatest thing ever. And so indeed the Pi is also overrated despite being really cool
Kinda. I’m self-hosting on a computer that, if it were a human child, would be in third grade. Didn’t need to buy a Pi with worse specs to do the same job at twice the hassle.
Yep.
Using a 2019 small form factor Dell desktop as an ESXI server running a handful of VM’s: Windows, Debian, DietPi, etc. I hammer the VM’s sometimes doing video conversion and everything just works.
Best part is it consumes less than 20 watts at idle, and maxes at 80 watts. Hard to beat.
isn’t that some bad dude or sth … i heard rumors
PREACH OP!
